'What's the Netflix Password Again, Mom?'

Kids Stay on Their Family Plans For Movies, Phones; the Fiancée, Too

ENLARGE

The Hughes family of San Diego, on vacation: Mom Shay, second from left and dad Jason, far right, plan to cover cellphone, iTunes and Netflix bills indefinitely for their kids Tucker, 20, far left, Bailey, 18, at center, and Star, 22, second from right.
Hughes Family

Getting grown kids out of the house these days is hard enough. Nudging them off the family cellphone plan—or out of an iTunes or Netflix account—can be even harder.

For increasing numbers of parents, the question of how much support to provide an adult child is no longer just about rent subsidies or car payments. The calculation is now complicated by the new maze of subscriptions that allow even far-flung family members (with the right password) to piggyback on a parental account well into their working lives.

When it comes to the digital apron strings, awkward relationship moments can ensue as parents, say, find themselves chasing down grown children about data limits. Now that federal health-care legislation lets adult kids stay on their parents' insurance plans longer, it seems 26 is the new 18.

More parents of adult children (ages 18 - 35) are paying for their cellphone or other bills. Sue Shellenbarger reports on Lunch Break. Photo: Getty Images.

More than 2 in 5 parents of 18- to 35-year-old children still pay for their kids' cellphone service, and 29% continue to do so even after their kids have moved out and stopped relying on them to pay rent, according to a recent
Harris Interactive
survey of 620 parents with adult children conducted for The Wall Street Journal.

Shay Hughes' 22-year-old daughter Star and 20-year-old son Tucker are both self-reliant and highly motivated, says Ms. Hughes, of San Diego. Star finished a two-year M.B.A. program in one year, has been working for 1½ years as a manager in the family's commercial real-estate business and recently bought a condo with her savings. Tucker is living at home while studying for his master's degree, and saving to buy a condo.

Both are on the family's iTunes, Netflix and cellphone plans indefinitely. It not only offers cost savings and bill-paying efficiency, but is a way to share new music and shows, she says. By trying out songs her kids downloaded, Ms. Hughes recently discovered two new country artists she enjoys,
Luke Bryan
and
Lee Brice.
"I don't have to do any work to find new artists and music. They do it for me," she says.

Providers offer incentives for kids to ride along. Opening a new account for one cellphone at Verizon,
AT&T
and Sprint typically costs two to four times more than adding one more phone to a family plan, and Verizon and AT&T allow up to 10 cellphones or tablets on a single account.

Netflix allows two video streams at once on one account, and Comcast allows up to three video streams at once for users of its Xfinity TV remote access. Parents pay many young adults' tab for mobile entertainment, with 17% paying for mobile Wi-Fi access, 12% covering such streaming-video services as Netflix or Hulu and 10% covering streaming-music services, such as iTunes or Spotify, according to the recent Harris poll.

Of course, parents' outlays for phones and entertainment are dwarfed by the cost of college tuition or paying the rent for young-adult children. A 2011 survey of 400 parents by Vibrant Nation, a website for women 45 and over that conducts research on baby boomer spending, found 39% of them still pay housing costs for children ages 18 to 30. "There is no Dr. Spock for raising 20-somethings," says
Stephen Reily,
founder of Vibrant Nation. "There is a fair amount of doubt and even embarrassment among parents about whether they are doing the right thing."

Parents' spending on phone, music, video and remote Web service is small by comparison, averaging $108 a month, according to the Harris poll.

Keeping kids on cellphone or entertainment plans "is really a symbolic bond, the last vestige of parents' financial support of their kids," says
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett,
a psychology professor at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., and coauthor of a forthcoming book, "When Will My Grown-Up Kid Grow Up?"

Christopher Berardi,
a 28-year-old attorney from Buffalo, N.Y., says he kids his mother that she still keeps him and his 26-year-old sister, a doctoral student, on the family plan "for the same reason she keeps buying a station wagon: It's an empty-nest coping mechanism."

His mother,
Sarah Berardi,
an author who is also from Buffalo, says she enjoys feeling connected: "My kids have always tried their hardest, and they have proven themselves to us. Why wouldn't I reward them?"

Mr. Berardi says staying on his family's plan is "a no-brainer" that he estimates costs far less than opening his own account. He and his fiancée,
Christie Witt,
plan to stay on either her or his family's plan after their May wedding—to save money, he says.

Work & Family Mailbox

Ms. Berardi doesn't use the shared account to keep tabs on her kids, as she once did in the past. When Chris failed to return her calls years ago as a college freshman, she punched in a random number from his cellphone call list, reaching a girl in his dorm who woke him up and ordered him to call his mom, Ms. Berardi says. "He was absolutely mortified." Mr. Berardi says he never made the same mistake again.

Some parents cover bills to support their kids' careers in the arts or public service.
Susan Tolles
of Austin, Tex., a writer and life coach, covered cellphone bills for her daughter Lauren, now 29, a physician assistant, while she and her husband provided medical care and schooling to poor children in the Dominican Republic for three years. "It isn't like we're babying our kids. It's out of necessity," Ms. Tolles says. "Someday, the tide is going to turn, and I'm going to need their help—hopefully not financially, but their care and emotional support."

Ms. Tolles also chips in for major purchases now and then, contributing about $400 for a big-screen TV two years ago for her son Jess, now 23 and a senior in college.

Young adults' heavy data use can be an issue for parents with data limits on their accounts.
Darryle Pollack
doesn't mind paying the cellphone bill for her 24-year-old son, a law student. "There aren't a whole lot of formal ties any more. This is just one little thing," says Ms. Pollack, a writer, artist and entrepreneur from Carmel, Calif.

She sometimes has to forward her son an AT&T email when their data usage is about to exceed the monthly limit, triggering high fees. He always cuts back immediately, but "I don't want to be in this position of monitoring his data use," she says. "I'd rather have AT&T tell him."

Dr. Arnett of Clark University suggests parents who want to wean kids off the family cellphone account can use humor, asking, "I was just wondering what you see as the end point? Obviously, you're not going to be on my cellphone plan when I'm 90 and you're 60." If an adult child seems unmotivated, this can be a "springboard to a larger and more serious conversation" about setting goals.

Natali Patrick,
22, a Tulsa, Okla.-based aspiring indie-rock singer, says she'll get her own cellphone plan "eventually." Meanwhile, she covers her $50 share of the family's plan when income from her day job as a preschool teacher allows. (She says she needs the smartphone for Internet access and buying her own plan would sharply increase her bill.) But her mother,
Erin Patrick,
a Tulsa-based writer, says she is happy to support Natali's rock-star dreams.

That said, Ms. Patrick and her husband have already started teaching their 16-year-old son Morgan to pay his own bills—for his favorite videogame RuneScape and the streaming-music service Spotify—with his earnings as a swim instructor.

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